Marissa Mayer Misrepresents Me

Ever since she signed on with Yahoo! in an attempt to right the ship, Marissa Mayer has been making splash headlines all over the most relevant digital business blogs. Most of these stories have had little importance to me. Yahoo! employees are getting iPhones? Don’t care. The new Y! homepage is revolutionary and groundbreaking/broken and useless? It looks just about the same to me. None of her “moves” had affected my life until now.
Whether you believe that Marissa Mayer’s working from home rule is stupid or you agree that it was a good call, this decision is having an impact. Mayer has sparked debate not only amongst employees who are pro and anti-telecommute, but also amongst Yahoo!’s working moms and their colleagues around the country. Mothers are upset because as they’re being asked to leave their home office/children behind, Mayer used her CEO salary and sway to build her own in-office nursery.
However, to be quite frank, I don’t particularly care about the affairs of these peeved parents. I’m upset because Mayer has drawn scrutiny upon telecommuting as a whole, and may have affected my ability to work from home once a week.
Mayer claims she has had her hand forced in this decision by showing that telecommuting employees are less productive. If this is the case then I am a statistical anomaly. Commuting a little over an hour each way to and from work can take a toll on my office productivity. Here’s a log of a day I spent working at home to detail why this workstyle, if non-traditional, helps me have some of my most productive days.

b: Wake up and place laptop onto stomach to respond to email and start planning my day – no need to remove blankets or experience that horrible morning cold8:45 AM: Remove myself from bed but not blankets (ET style), work at desk to complete outbound sales and marketing emails for the day11:00 AM: Upon completion of emails remove blankets and begin at home mini-work out11:10 AM: Return to desk after completing 5 laps of the apartment, 60 situps and 30 pushups (fwoof!), and full of energy. Browse social media and compile more email addresses to spread brand awareness in an adrenaline fueled rage1:00 PM: Toast with melted sharp cheddar and salami for lunch over half an episode of SportsCenter1:30 PM: (Peel myself away from sportscenter talking heads) and Back to the desk to poach potential sales from a list of competitors’ clientele2:30 PM: Let in the repairman who came to fix our dryer because none of my roommates are allowed a work from home day2:31 PM: Continue Poaching emails4:00 PM: Research for an upcoming white paper5:00 PM: Write first draft of blog post for the next day5:30 PM: Begin planning dinner and call it a day

Most of the entries here are the same type of activities I complete during my normal day-to-day at the office. The key differences being that I don’t have to spend an hour hating myself because I’m stuck in traffic before and after work, I save money on the lunch I make, and I don’t have to deal with the first world torture of removing my duvet immediately after I wake up.
My productivity doesn’t take a cut, but my work induced stress sure does. Maybe Marissa Mayer should take a closer look at how employees telecommute before she trashes it all together, but probably she will continue to make brash, game-changing decisions that make headlines. I’ll hope for the latter as long as she stays out of my business.